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Darwin's Legacy

Chapter 13 - Revelations: Part I

Annie was escorted to Silver Tip's chambers by Tig and a trio of lager fox guards, where she was turned over to the care of a bevy of vixen servants. Under the supervision of the old caravan leader's feline spouse, Aster, they scrubbed and shampooed leagues of road dust and grit from Annie's hide. Then they trimmed her fur and claws before tying bows in the former and painting the latter. Finally they dressed her in layers of silk, a material that was light but warm enough in the cool caverns that made up the foxes' winter campground.

"I must say that you are the prettiest wolf that I have ever seen." Aster complimented her after dismissing the servants. "You have already made a number of the high society vixens jealous, and they have not seen you at your best yet. If you go out like this they will stab their mate's eyes out to keep them from catching a glimpse of you and forgetting all about them."

"Thank you Aster." Annie blushed under her freshly washed fur. "But they have no need to be jealous. I am small and slight for my race, and not considered worthy for breeding."

"You will find that does not matter to a fox." Aster chuckled as she ruffled Annie's ears in a friendly manner. "Most of their males would jump a wood pile on the off chance that there was a snake inside, and many would give half their caravans to spend some time with a pretty thing like you. Only a few of the more noble, like my Silver Tip, show any restraint when it comes to females; and even his eyes wander from time to time. That is why I traveled with him even though it was so dangerous for me and our baby."

"It must be hard on you, being the only feline among all these foxes."

"It was not as lonely as it seems at first." Aster signed. "I am not the first foreign female to grace these halls. Many of the more successful foxes keep females from the other species as concubines. Most are allowed to roam freely in the public areas of the caverns and I made friends with several of them last winter before we set out in the caravan. But even among them I was different because I was the first to become mated. Now that I have managed to bear a child I am afraid that none will ever speak to me again."

"But doesn't the birth mean that they too can hope to bear children to their ... their ..."

"Masters." Aster filled in curtly. "In reality, they are slaves, no matter how well they are treated by the foxes that own them. Most are outcasts from their homes or lived in such abject poverty that their parents were forced to sell them off so that the rest of the family could survive. They own no property and are not free to leave if the arrangement does not suit them. While it is true that most are pensioned off when they grow old and can return to their village, tribe or pack in relative wealth it is more because the foxes on the whole do not like having other species living among them than out any sense of obligation. Neither I nor my son can inherit under current fox laws, but Silver Tip will attempt to have those laws changed once the war is over. Knowing this, the official mates of those other foxes will be clamouring for them to get rid of their harems or have them rendered sterile before anymore half-breeds pop out."

"I'm sorry Aster." Annie tool the taller feline's paws between hers. "I would like to be your friend, while I am here at least, but I'm afraid that I have to leave soon. You see, there is someone I am trying to find. Someone who loved me but who I foolishly rejected."

"Tell me about him."

Annie told Aster everything; from her childhood horror and the trio she had formed with the two young males, one destined to be the pack Balance, the other the storyteller. She did not hold back as she recounted how, as her friends grew older and more occupied with their apprenticeships, she sought companionship in the beds of other males. Finally she told of how the pack leader had made her Mi-Ran, and the fight she had with Da-Lan after making love with him for the first and only time. How he had run off, to be followed by their only other friend in the pack, Ro-Ack. How she had found Da-Lan's note confessing his love for her and the pain her choice had brought him being passed from paw to paw around the pack as a joke.

"And they laughed at the thought of him and I being a couple." She sobbed into Aster's shoulder as the tall cat rocked her in her arms. "Just because I am a tiny wh -who - whore and he was a hun - hunchback."

She felt Aster stiffen at the last word. "Your Da-Lan was a hunchback?" She asked in earnest. "And your friend, Ro-Ack, was he a big handsome grey wolf with a white blaze on his chest, a quiet studious type?"

"Yes! Have you seen them?"

"Seen them? They were guards in our caravan. They saved my life and that of my baby. They go by the names Dylan and Roark now."

"Then they must be living in the village we passed at the crossroads, with the rest of the guards!" Annie exclaimed and jumped up. "I must go see them, immediately."

"I am afraid that it is not that simple." Aster said gently as she pulled the anxious she-wolf back to a sitting position. "Dylan and Roark did not want to live among the rough and tumble crew that inhabit the guard village. They set out to tour the river valley for the winter, and are not due to return until the spring. Now with the war coming following them may well prove impossible."

Annie was about to answer that the war made her quest all the more urgent but just them Tig arrived in his father's quarters to escort Annie on a tour of the caverns as he had promised he would. When he saw the results of the servant's attentions the diminutive fox stopped dead in his tracks.

"Mille sabords!" He exclaimed before recovering his composure. "I mean ... how lovely you look today Annie." Tig swept his wide-brimmed hat before him and bowed in an elaborate show of nonchalance, but his eyes never left Annie.

"As I said," Aster chuckled, "not much matters to a fox."

"Sorry?" Tig asked looking back and forth between the suddenly giggling pair.

"Nothing Tig." Annie said as she took her escort by the arm and turned him back toward the door. "We'll talk again when I return." She called over her shoulder to Aster.

Annie allowed Tig to lead her out of Silver Tip's suite of caves and out of his clan's section of the caverns. She immediately noticed that they were going without the contingent of guards that had accompanied her everywhere up to this point. Tig assured her that they were unnecessary now that war had been declared and the other clans had nothing to gain through her death.

"And besides, you have Tig to protect you." He added with a waggle of his brows. Annie was forced to laugh for the second time that morning, but she soon grew serious again.

"I have learned that the two wolves that I seek have changed their names and gone off to tour the canine villages and feline encampments." She informed the little fox when he asked why she was frowning. "They had been working for your father and were to rejoin his caravan in the spring, but went traveling for the winter with a fox named Dead Eye."

"I know that fox." Tig informed her. "Although he is from a different clan he has worked for my father for many years. He has just returned to the campgrounds, alone, and is reporting to the war council as we speak."

"Alone? The wolves Roark and Dylan were not with him?"

"No. But then, he would not bring other species members to the campground unless their testimony was vital, as yours was." Tig rubbed his chin as he pondered the possibilities. "He likely left them at the guard village or in a camp between here and there."

"Or they were captured by the wolf alliance and killed as traitors."

"Many things can happen in the confusion of war, not all of them bad." Tig patted her paw reassuringly. "If your friends were as talented as you say I'm sure that they are still out there somewhere. Maybe leading a contingent of refugees against this Ang-Ro."

"They would do something crazy like that." Annie agreed.

"We'll go see Dead Eye as soon as the council is done with him. Meanwhile, I want to show you a few things so that you will have a better understanding of fox culture and psychology."

"That's a big word, psychology."

"Renaud taught it to us."

They crossed the boundary between Silver Tip's caverns and the common area of the campgrounds, and immediately all eyes were upon them. Fox children stopped dead in their tracks and stared for a moment before running off to tell their friends that they had seen the strange little son of Silver Tip and his pet she-wolf. Vixens of all ages stepped to the other side of the roadway and whispered to each other behind their paws. Adult and adolescent males bumped into walls and each other as they were unable to tear their eyes off the lovely Annie.

"I assume that Aster has told you something of the, uhm, mating habits of the male foxes?"

"She did mention something about wood piles and snakes."

"That part is patently untrue, except for a fellow named Patch that I had a run in with once. But it is true that we males tend to lose ourselves in the moment when confronted with a beautiful female, regardless of the species. We are very liberal in that sense."

"Liberal slave owners?"

"The later is a condition created by wealthy, licentious, weak and unprincipled foxes." Tig snarled in a rare show of anger. "It is against the laws of Renaud, a fact which they choose to ignore. My father, for all his faults, never kept a female against her will and neither would I. Once this war is done with it is one more thing that needs to be set right."

"You are the noblest creature that I have ever met." Annie said, taking her turn in patting his paw to calm him.

"And the most sensual?" he grinned up at her.

"Uhm, maybe. The cuddliest anyway."

"Oh well." He sighed. "I suppose that will have to do ... for now." He gave a look from under the brim of his hat that told her he had not entirely given up on his hopes of one day winning affections beyond that of the friendship they had already established. "But it is that kind of uncontrollable lust that got us in this war in the first place, and I fear that I am to blame."

"Oh?" She asked as they turned off the main route into what looked like a less populated and older section of the caverns. "How so?"

"One day while I was traveling in your mountains, not long after Father disowned me, I came upon a large black female wolf bathing in a mountain river stream. She was beautiful in a terrible, hard way, and I wanted her. I showed myself. At first she thought that I was a kit and told me to be on my way, but I disrobed and, uhm, ah, managed to convince her of my adulthood. She was insatiable and wild, but I eventually subdued and satisfied her. Afterward we lay in the soft grass by the stream, recuperating for a second go. Unfortunately, in my fatigue and state of lustful conquest I started to tell her of the world outside her den. She gave me wine, drugged perhaps, and fed me questions that I was only too happy to answer."

"You survived a session with Ro-Da?" Annie looked at the little fox with new respect. "She has left fully grown assaulters broken and gibbering in her wake. How did you manage to survive?"

"Every female has a little bit of mother instinct in them, whether they know it or not. I just used that to my advantage."

"I would not put it past Ro-Da to eat her young."

"Yes, well, she does tend to bite, but that is where being short turns out to be an advantage. You see, in order to keep out of range of her snapping jaws I ..."

"That's quite enough." Annie put a paw to his snout and closed his mouth before he could say anything that would worsen the already bizarre images of Tig and Ro-Da together in her head. "What could you have possibly told her that could start a war?"

"I'll explain by telling you about foxes." Tig began. The trail they were following was getting steeper, going deeper into the caves. Lamps at regular intervals lit the way with their wavering light. It created an eerie setting for the tale Tig was about to tell.

"Before the change, foxes were smaller than the true canines, barely bigger than cats, and like cats, we were hunted by all of them. To survive we dug dens under boulders and squeezed though cracks in the rock. The chambers we are headed for are part of one of those original dens, although we have enlarged the entrance and widened the trail to it since then. We stood no chance against the other species outside of our dens, but we still had to go out to forage and hunt, so we had to rely on our wits."

"Then Renaud came along and showed us how to use our intelligence. He taught us things that the other species did not know. He gave us language and laws, science and skills. But physically, we were still far behind the other species, so we kept our talents hidden, and only moved about in large numbers for safety. And we had to move about, because while our ever expanding cave system was safe and secure, it lacked the basic resources we needed. It was in a sparsely populated area before the change apparently, and there was not much in the way of artefacts left behind. That is one of the reasons why we became traders and created the caravans, as way of moving about safely to acquire the materials we needed."

The trail that they were following became narrower with every branch that they passed. The number of foxes they saw became less the further down that they went. When they reached a point where they could barely walk side by side, where the ceiling was so low that full grown foxes would have to stoop, Annie noticed that the walls were covered with paintings. At first they showed foxes much like Silver Tip's generation, in caravans dealing with the other species. But as they progressed both the foxes and the other species grew more primitive, and their forms became more like the feral beasts they once were. She realized that what she was looking at was a pictorial history of the foxes in reverse. She thought that it probably started in the original den, maybe with simple stick figures like the ones in some of the caves of her home pack.

Then Annie noticed that the quality of light was different here too. It was brighter and steadier than it had been in the populated areas, which was strange, because it took constant care to fill and trim the wicks of the lamps and there was no one about to do it. Indeed, this section of the caves looked like hardly anyone ever came down here. She said as much to Tig.

"That is so." He confirmed. "We only come down here for certain ceremonies on special dates. And young kits are brought down when they start school to hear the story of Renaud in its original setting. But that is about it. We will not be interrupted unless father sends someone to fetch us."

"Did you have some servant go before us to light the lamps?"

Rather than answer, Tig stopped by the next lamp and removed the opaque glass cover. Inside there was a smaller glass device. It was so bright that looking straight at it left an afterimage when she looked away. Holding her paw in front of her eyes and squinting between the digits Annie saw that the light came from a glowing wire inside the device. Tig pressed a button on the bottom of the lamp and the wire ceased to glow. He pressed it again and the light returned. He cycled the device a few more times before putting the cover back on.

"Lamps without oil? Light without flame?" Annie said, shocked.

"One of the little secrets that Renaud taught us."

"It's like magic."

"Making fire with sulphur matches probably seemed like magic to your ancestors too, but they got used to it." Tig commented. The wolves had figured out how to make fire with flint and steel on their own but matches were one of the fox commodities that they had not been able to duplicate yet. "You do not realize how much of what you know has been passed down first to us from Renaud and then through us to the other species. It was not his desire that we keep all knowledge to ourselves, because he predicted the day when the species would become so similar that they could breed together. Until that time he wanted us to keep the peace, and educate the other species like he educated us."

"He must have been one hell of a fox."

"That he was. The first fox."

Annie thought back over the wolf lore that she had learned by listening to the Da-Lans. While there were a number of heroic figures in their history there was no one single wolf who was as intelligent and enlightened as this Renaud character seemed to be. Maybe if Tig had not told the his secrets to Ro-Da, Ro-Ack, Roark now, she corrected herself, might have rose up to unite the packs in a peaceful manner. Then would future generations would speak of him as the foxes spoke of Renaud, she wondered?

They continued along the trail. Annie only glanced at the murals, intending to study them in their proper order on the way back. Tig continued to tell of the early foxes.

"Keeping the peace proved difficult. The feline breeds were aloof, suspicious, and the canine breeds were larger and aggressive. In the early days after the change the species were after each other's throats, but their particular characteristics allowed each to survive. Each species settled into a different part of the valley, where they could breed in relative safety. Dogs worked in large groups to chase off the wolves and coyotes and kept to the flat, open river valley. Coyotes took to the arid plains where their ability to go without water or nourishment for long periods was an advantage. The felines hid in the deep forest where the larger canines could not follow. The wolves moved into the mountains where it was easier to defend their dens. None of them would accept us as mentors, so we devised a scheme wherein we would become useful, wandering traders and entertainers that wandered feely between the territories."

"But as the other species grew more intelligent and capable they started to expand their territory, and that is when the trouble began. We had to discourage the expansion. When the dogs tried to move north, close to our campgrounds, they found their fields poisoned and their flocks barren. They blamed it on bad air and left. The guard village is all that remains of their attempts. The felines we kept east of the river by chasing off the game they relied on from this side of the river. The coyotes that circled around the inhabited areas simply disappeared, and we limited the level of the goods we traded to the wolves to the basics so that they could not duplicate our weaponry and take over the valley."

"That did not work out as well as it might."

"Only because of my indiscretion." Tig said sadly. You have heard talk of the Southern Kingdom, have you not?"

"Yes, but whenever I ask about it you change the subject."

"That is because it has been another of our well-guarded secrets, the fact that we five species, the wolves, coyotes, dogs, foxes and felines, are not alone in this world. In the south there is a kingdom made up of five entirely different species. Species mostly larger and fiercer than us. And they are led by a king that also wants to take over the world. But they have an advantage that Ang-Ro does not have."

"What is that?"

"They know that this is possible." Tig stopped and pointed at one of the lamps that burned without oil. "And many more wonders besides. Once you know that something is possible, that it existed, you know that it can be done again. But the southerners are far behind the valley species in physical development, which makes it impossible for them to build the fine tools and instruments required to duplicate this technology. However, if they were to invade the valley and enslave the more dexterous creatures, the feline and the dogs in particular, then there would be no stopping them. Keeping them in the south, and keeping the rest of you in the north, has been our main task for the last several hundred years."

"The dogs and cats are that clever?"

"Yes. We gave them hints of technology and they adapted it to suit their needs. A hundred years ago a dog took apart a pepper mill we sold him and from studying the gears came up with a device to grind flour, and wind mills to power it. They took small hand looms and developed automatic ones, powered by belts on gears driven by water. The felines turned rudimentary bows into the fine weapons we trade now, as well as harps and other stringed instruments. But it is not just them. The coyotes work leather harvested from the wild cattle that roam the plains. A pack of wolves south of your home has discovered a vein of coal deep in the mountains and is developing their own form of metallurgy. In a few generations they will be in competition with us."

"Metallurgy?"

"The science of metals." Tig replied. "In each case we gave them a few hints, and they came up with the rest. Some things caught on, others did not. The dogs with their habit of cooperating and collaborating advanced steadily in agriculture and engineering. The felines with their love of nature have excelled in the arts. The coyotes are taking longer to overcome their solitary nature, and, if you will excuse me, the wolves have yet to shake off their feral roots. But there are many positive signs." He added hastily. "Like the rise of the negotiators and pack Balances, the storytellers and the healers. Things would have progressed nicely if I had not told Ro-Da of the southerners and their lust for knowledge."

"But what does she want from them?"

"I am afraid that I was being mysterious in my desire to impress her. I hinted that they knew the secret to ultimate power, meaning that knowing something is possible is almost as good as knowing how to make it, but she took it another way. In the end she treated me very roughly in an attempt to get more out of me, but I was able to slip out of her clutches, leaving behind one of my finer hats, I might add. In any event, it appears that this whole wolf alliance and the war in the valley was merely a means to an end, that of conquering the southerners and wresting that secret from them."

Annie was about to ask what he thought would happen if Ang-Ro and Ro-Da were successful, when they arrived in an antechamber with passageways leading to a number of different rooms.

"These are out original caves." Tig told her. "This is where we keep our most sacred artefacts, hidden deep under the mountain and safe from prowling foes. As I said, we have enlarged them since then to allow the passage of the larger foxes we have become. Most of us anyway." He added, looking up at the ceiling which was far above his head. "Come. We will start with the shrine to Renaud."

He took the centermost passage and after several yards they arrived in a room no larger than the cell Annie had occupied. In the centre was a statue. It depicted several feral foxes, naked save for the fur they were born with, laying at the feet of a creature dressed in flowing robes. The foxes were smaller than Tig, barely half his size, but the creature was as large as Silver Tip, who was one of the bigger foxes that Annie had seen. Something in the creature's appearance sparked a memory in her head.

"Tig." She spoke slowly, uncertainly. "Is Renaud a ... a ..."

"Yes." He replied without hesitation. "Renaud was a human."

* * * * * * * * *

At first Snowdrop thought that she was dreaming.

In her dream huge insects with several compound eyes each and lime-green carapaces were dining upon her carcass. They had strange mouth parts and shiny silver claws that looked like hooks and clamps on the ends of their appendages. They were silhouetted by the sun behind them, so she supposed she was lying on the rock of the natural amphitheatre she had been trapped in. But she felt too comfortable, to warm and cozy, to be lying on bare rock. And the sun, while bright as ever, was shining with a much harsher and cold type of light than she remembered. But that is dreams for you, she thought, close to reality but never spot on. For example, even though these insects appear to be dining on me I can hardly feel anything.

Snowdrop could feel some sensations though, that of her limbs being moved about and the cold hard claws of the insects pinching her flesh and parting her toes. She could also hear the creatures vocalizing - and she realized that they were speaking in the common tongue, although half of the words they used were gibberish to her.

"Continuing our examination of a female, late adolescent Felis catus domestica americanus, we come to the lower skeletal structure." Snowdrop felt something poking and prodding along the sides of her feet and lower legs.

"I told you before, domestica americanus is an unnecessary affixation." A second voice interrupted. "There is no genetic distinction between the so-called domestic breeds. Properly, it is simply Felis catus."

"Who is the chief biologist here?"

"That title expired two thousand years ago."

"You're just jealous because I had a fellowship and you didn't"

"I was working on practical research, if you recall, that led to ..."

"Can you two stop arguing for once?" A third, exasperated voice asked. "The first time in a thousand years that we have a specimen from the north to examine and you two fight over something like classification."

"You are right." The first voice answered from somewhere close to her left ear. "Let us continue with F. catus." Snowdrop heard the speaker add 'domesticus americanus' under its breath.

"So, similar to the condition of the metacarpals and phalanges of the forepaws having formed into hands and fingers, the metatarsals, tarsals and phalanges of the hind paws have formed into feet with the calcis fulfilling the function of the human calcaneus. The femur, fibula and tibia are well proportioned. The caudal bones remain intact, much like those in any feral feline, but the pelvis has widened and spread similar to that found in human females. This is obviously not only to facilitate an upright posture, but also to allow for the passage of babies with larger cranial structures due to larger cerebra."

"That is an unsubstantiated theory." The second voice injected. "There is no way that you can prove increased cerebral size in feline foetuses based on a single subject."

"She obviously has an enlarged cranium to hold a well-developed brain. You saw what she was about to do before we interceded. That kind of reasoning takes a pretty big frontal lobe."

"How do you know? Without a CT scan you can't say that for sure. She could be a freak, suffering from Paget's disease."

"Well, the scanner's been broken for over five hundred years so what do suggest, that I cut her head open and look for myself?"

"It would be one way of finding out. Of course you would have to scoop the brain out to ..."

"Oh, will you two stop. We can discuss the implications later. Besides, I think that she is regaining consciousness."

One of the creatures, the last to speak, reached around and picked up something with the silver claw on its right appendage. It brought it close to Snowdrop's face and she could see that it was a green glass capsule wrapped in a mesh covering. It hovered just in front of her snout. The creature put its other appendage over her mouth, forcing her to breathe in through her nose and then she heard the snap of breaking glass as the creature crushed the capsule.

It smelled like cat urine, concentrated cat urine. Snowdrop sat up sputtering and sneezing in reaction to the burning sensation in her sinuses. Her eyes were watering and red, her heart was racing and she could feel the blood rushing to her head. She shook it to relieve the pressure, and rubbed her eyes to clear them. When she lowered her paws the three creatures were still there, staring at her with their many multi-lensed eyes.

That was when Snowdrop realized that this was not a dream, and a second later, that she was naked and surrounded by giant insect-like creatures that had just been discussing removing her head and eating her brains.

She hissed, a feral sound that she had only heard tell of in stories from the old days, and tried to jump backwards off the table they had laid her out on, but she could not move. A thick strap circled her waist and disappeared into the surface of the table. She scratched at it with claws far to blunt to do any damage and then looked around wildly for anything within reach that she could use for a weapon. She saw a tray with a number of their steel claws arrayed on it and she grabbed the largest one.

The three creatures jumped back as she flailed about her with the clamp. They stopped a few feet away from the end of the table where her feet were and stood in a row. Despite their similar appearance they were each different. The one on the left was short and rotund. The one on the right was tall and thin, and the one in the middle was somewhere between the others in both height and build. The short round one spoke what she recognized as the third voice.

"Now, please, stay calm." The creature held out an arm and Snowdrop saw that it did not end in a claw, but a paw covered in some sort of plastic glove. And the green covering was not a shell, just a suit of shiny material that covered the creature's entire body. And the parts she had taken for eyes and mouth parts were just plastic devices and transparent discs fixed to it.

As if to confirm her conclusion, the creature raised and arm and pulled the top of the suit up and back over its head. Snowdrop hissed again, because the face it revealed was not much better. It was slack and hairless, except for a few tufts on top, and its eyes were covered by discs held on by two plastic arms that rested on ... could those lumps of flesh be ears?

"Now please, put down the clamp and relax. We are not going to hurt you. Come on now, nice kitty."

"We should give her a shot." The tallest creature said in voice number one.

"She is pregnant you idiot." Voice number two came from the middle one as it too pulled off its head covering, revealing a face covered with reddish fur, except around the eyes and a thin, pink protuberance that may have been its snout "A sedative could terminate the pregnancy, and then we would only be able to examine the foetus post mortem."

"Some chloroform then?"

"Too risky. In her condition she may stop breathing."

"Well then what do you suggest, genius?" The tall creature also pulled off his top piece, showing a face that was much like the first, but thinner and topped by a thick patch of wavy black fur.

"Get away from me!" she screamed as she finally found her tongue.

"She Spoke!" Tall and thin exclaimed.

"Of course she spoke." The short one replied. "I told you that her vocal cords were capable of it, and the ability to use language proves what I said about brain development. Paget's disease, phah!"

"No. I mean, yes. But she spoke English!"

"What did you expect, Ray? Swahili?" The red haired one scolded.

"No, of course not. But it means that your inherited memory trick worked."

"Did you ever doubt it?"

"Wait." The short one interrupted. "Who is spouting unproven theories now?"

"Unproven? The proof lies before you, literally. It could not be clearer if it sang 'Yankee Doodle' in two-part harmony."

"There could be dozens of ways it learned English that have nothing to do with your inherited memory theory."

"Why, you mountebank! You ... you ..."

The three had forgotten all about Snowdrop in their squabbling. Her eyes darted back and forth between the three, reading their expressions, picking out the meaning of their long words from their body language. They were bickering like siblings over the last drumstick. The shortest one struggled out of its body suit as it sputtered, revealing a body as round and toneless as its face. A body bereft of any hint of having ever been or ever becoming dangerous. She relaxed her grip on the shiny tool and it slipped from her paw to clatter to the floor. The noise caught the attention of the three and they turned to face her again.

"What is going on here? Who are you ... you ..."

"People?" Short and flabby offered. The word seemed to fit.

"Why am I here?"

"Ah. Philosophy! The meaning of life." The middle one smiled. "A good question, uhm, miss. One that we have had a lot of time to ponder of late. Let me start with ..."

"Tom, that is not what she meant." The tall one interrupted, but not unkindly. "I think she means why have we stripped her, tied her to a table and poked her with sharp instruments."

"I'm sorry." The short one looked genuinely pained. "We had no idea that you were so intellectually developed. The condition we found you in, the rags you were wearing. We thought that you were more feral ... that you wouldn't mind if ... I'm ... I'm sorry." He looked to the floor.

"As for who we are," the tall one continued, "we are scientists. Biologists to be exact. We study life and living organisms. I am Raymond Dart. My bearded colleague is Thomas Morgan, and the short one is George Beadle."

"But you can call us Tom, George and Ray." The hairy one, Morgan, said in a friendly tone.

"I'm George." The short one smiled shyly.

"Ray." The tall one said flatly, looking away.

"And I'm Tom." The middle one smiled again through its red facial fur.

"Yes, fine, but ... what species are you?"

The three looked shocked. After glancing at one another the short one, George she recalled, answered for them.

"Why, we're humans, my dear."

"Great." Ray sighed after observing the Snowdrop's reaction. "She's fainted again."

* * * * * * * *

Snowdrop regained consciousness the second time in more comfortable surroundings and more pleasant circumstances.

Her first sensation was that of warmth, the second of soft music, and the third of dim light. At first she wondered if she had died at the paws of her human torturers and gone to join the gods in their heavenly encampments, but a kick from the baby growing inside her eliminated that possibility. She felt around as her eyes adjusted to the light and determined that she was in a soft bed of some sort, covered with warm blankets. When she could make out details of the room she was in she saw that it was about the size of the tent she had occupied when she was serving as apprentice priestess, but its walls, floor and ceiling were flat and every corner was square. There was a single door, on the wall opposite the bed, and it was closed. Other than the bed there was a large wooden chest of an unfamiliar style against the wall, a comfortable looking chair and a small table beside the bed. On the table was a small black device with glowing green numbers in the common script on the front, which were providing the illumination.

She sat up and looked around, expecting to see several musicians playing in one of the corners of the room but she was alone. She cocked one ear out and one forward to isolate the source of the music and discovered that it was coming from the same device that held the glowing numbers. As she stared at it the last number changed, increasing by one. Snowdrop wondered what it was for. There were a number of buttons and dials on the device. Looking closer she made out the words 'On', 'Off'', 'Sleep' and 'Snooze'. Curiosity overcame her sense of caution and she poked at these four buttons. Appropriately enough 'On' made the music come on and 'Off' turned it off; but 'Snooze' also turned the music off when it was on and 'Sleep' made it come on when it was off.

Are not to snooze and to sleep the same? She wondered to herself. Both should do the same thing, so why does pressing 'Sleep' wake up the music and 'Snooze' put it back to sleep?

Snowdrop picked up the device to see how the smaller buttons and dials were labelled, but she must have touched something while doing so because the music suddenly became very loud. Frightened, she threw the device across the room, only to see it come up short at the end of a black cable that anchored it to the wall. It fell silent when it struck the floor and Snowdrop was afraid that she had broken the miraculous device. A few seconds later she heard a soft knocking on the door.

"Miss. Can I come in?"

It was the voice of the one called George, the short pudgy one.

"Y - yes." She replied nervously as she gathered the blankets about her. Best to act friendly, i_t's not like I could stop him_, she thought.

The door opened and the short human touched a spot on the wall that made the room light up. Snowdrop blinked as she looked around for lamps or candles but the light was coming through translucent panels in the ceiling.

George pulled the chair up closer to the bed and sat down in it, sinking into the padding with a contented grunt.

"Sorry," he apologised, "you don't mind if I sit as we talk, do you?"

Snowdrop shook her head as she peaked out over the blanket and then nodded, uncertain which one the human would understand.

"No you don't mind and yes I can sit?" She hesitated and nodded her head again. "Good. I have not been on my feet this much for an age, literally." He wiggled comfortably in the big chair. "Anyway, the others asked me to talk with you first this time, because I'm the least frightening."

Snowdrop could argue with that. She found the flabby, hairless creature with the strange lenses over his eyes a bit disturbing, like a giant slug. She would rather have talked to the mid-sized one, Tom, who at least had some fur on him and whose friendly smile reminded her a bit of Darwin. But she just nodded her head to indicate that he should continue.

"May I ask if you have a name?"

"Snowdrop." She whispered.

"Snowdrop. That's a lovely name, and I can see how you got it from that drop of white fur on your forehead. Do you remember my name?"

"George." She said quietly. "George Beadle. And the others are Tom Morgan, with the fur and Ray Dart, the tall one."

"Excellent!" George Beamed. "But please, just call us George, Tom and Ray. We'd like to be your friends."

"Ray did not look like he wanted to be friends, or called Ray." She replied, growing a little bolder.

"Oh, don't mind Ray. He was like that before the change. He's a nice enough fellow once you get to know him."

"Really?"

"No. Not really." He smiled sadly. "But we've gotten used to him. With just three of us to keep each other company all these years we have had to make a few concessions."

"Are you the last of the humans?" She asked.

"We believe so." His smile faded altogether, and a tear formed in the corner of his eye. "It has been so very long since there was anyone else to talk to. You must forgive me." George took out a square of white cloth and wiped his face with it, whisking away the tear before it could escape. "We will have to tell you of the world as it was in our time, but first I would like to learn a little about you."

"What do you want to know?" Snowdrop hugged the covers again anxiously. Every time she talked about herself something bad seemed to happen.

"Well, everything I suppose. The history of your people, how you live, what kind of society you have, what you eat. Oh, speaking of food, are you hungry?"

The mention of food brought a rush of appetite to her, as if it was hiding and only came out at the prospect of being satisfied. Her stomach growled like a dog.

"I'm famished." She admitted.

"What do you like to eat? Uhm, mice? Rats? Cooked or uncooked?

"Mice are too small to eat." She told him, wondering where he had gotten hat idea from. "And rats are almost as bad. We eat roast venison quite a bit. Pork is fine too, or chicken when we have a laying hen that has stopped producing. Mutton when we can stea ... get it." She had almost said 'steal it', but she did not want to seem barbaric in front of the humans, if that was indeed what they were. They hardly fit the god-like image that the legends had built in her mind. "Sometimes moose or elk."

"Moose is beyond our means," he chuckled, "but chicken we can manage. With peas and carrots if you like."

"Those would suit me just fine." She was familiar with wild peas and carrots and how they could be cooked up in a stew. She expected him to go and ask one of the others to get the food ready but he just sat there. "Are you not going to have the food prepared?"

"Tom and Ray will handle it. They have been listening in, on this." George held up a black device that was similar to the one she had hurled across the room, but smaller. "It's a radio. I don't suppose you have radio? No? Anyway, it is a communication device. They can listen in on us from anywhere in the compound, and can speak to me through it if they want, but I have turned the sound off so that we won't be disturbed."

"Is that how the music got into the other box?" She pointed toward the device lying on the floor. George got up and waddled over to pick it up. He touched something and music blared forth for a second, but he lowered the volume before shutting it off.

"Yes, exactly the same principle. We transmit a variety of music around the compound for our own entertainment, along with the occasional contact message, just in case anyone is listening." His smile faded again, but it soon returned. "So, why don't you tell me about yourself while we wait for the food?"

Snowdrop began, tentatively at first, with her early life in the encampment. George proved to be a good, compassionate listener. That and the long months in isolation with no one to talk to soon had her talking like she had known him her whole life. She reached the point where she had been selected as the next priestess when the food arrived, delivered by Tom. He brought enough for three, and a spare chair. She agreed to let him join them while she ate and continued her story.

She became even more animated in reaction to Tom's occasional quip or chuckle at her early, inconsequential misfortunes and misunderstandings with Darwin. At some point in her narrative Ray showed up at the open door and she nodded assent to his silent request to be included. He sat silently by the door, listening intensely, occasionally opening his mouth and drawing a deep breath as if to comment, but always shutting it after a glance from Tom or George.

Snowdrop recounted the part about being caught with Darwin and being sold into slavery with some difficulty, but with George's encouragement and a few pats on the arm from the little human she made it through. She told them of Patch's humiliating scheme and his plans to sell her to the King when he discovered that she was pregnant by the beagle, and that was when Ray could not be contained anymore and interrupted.

"You were a virgin before this canine lover of yours?" He asked harshly, standing up and stepping forward. George and Tom attempted to quiet him but he shook them off. "No, you old fools, this is important. Answer my question ... please. "

"Yes." She said defiantly. "He was the first and only, the father of my unborn child."

"Has this ever happened before? Felines getting pregnant by canines, or vice versa?"

"Never. The priestesses, who also serve as midwives, would have heard of such a thing."

"Felines and foxes or canines and foxes maybe?"

"Not that I have ever heard of, although Patch would occasionally grumble about someone named Silver Tip that had a pregnant feline wife. But he was of the opinion that Silver Tip was not the father."

Ray turned his back to her and addressed his colleagues. "You know what this means?"

"Yes." Tom answered. "The genes have become similar enough to allow cross-species breeding." The three fell into a discussion using words that snowdrop had never heard before, but the one Tom had used made frequent appearances.

"Jeans?" Snowdrop inquired. The word brought an image of rough trousers in vivid blue tones to her mind, although she could not recall ever seeing any quite like that.

"It is spelt G-E-N-E-S, the stuff we are made of." George informed her before turning back to the conversation. Snowdrop was even more confused. Everyone she knew was made of meat and blood and fur. What did these genes have to do with it?

"What do you make of these foxes she talks about?" Tom asked his colleagues. "We did not include foxes in our samples."

"Renaud, obviously." Ray sneered.

That was a name Snowdrop recognized from her time in captivity. She had assumed that he was some kind of fox deity, because he blamed for every mishap and praised for every fortuitous event that befell the foxes in Patch's caravan.

The three humans had fallen silent, their paws on their chins and their brows wrinkled in thought. Snowdrop used the pause to ask, "Who was Renaud?"

"He is one of us." Tome answered.

"Was one of us." Ray countered.

"Don't get started you two." George shook his head. "He was a scientist, like us." He continued. "Well, similar to us. He was not a biologist. He was a physicist with an engineering degree."

"And he minored in philosophy." Ray sneered.

"I told you to be quiet." George scolded the tall, thin scientist. Looking at Snowdrop he noted that she wore the same glazed expression that the Grants Committee used to get whenever he tried to explain his genetic theories to them. "Renaud was an expert on how things work, and how to build them." He explained. "He also wondered about why things were the way they were and how we might make them better."

"That was a popular topic in those last few years." Tom sighed. "And he could be a pain with all his lectures about the greater good and our responsibility as creators. But things were better when he was around."

"Things got fixed when he was around." Ray added.

"He did all the repairs around here." George clarified. "We worked in the labs and handled the specimens. After he left we tried our best to keep things running, but I'm afraid that none of us has any talent in that regard. A lot of things have broken down that are beyond our means of repair."

"How long ago did he leave?" Snowdrop asked. If things were not too far gone some of the canines that kept the gears and the belts in mills working that Darwin had told her about might be able to make the repairs they needed.

"Oh, let's see, about ... what? A thousand years ago now, wouldn't you say, Tom?"

"Give or take."

"A thousand years!" Snowdrop was shocked. If humans lived for over a thousand years then maybe they really were gods.

"One thousand one hundred and twelve to be exact." Ray said after poking at a glowing device that he held up in front of his face. "I marked it in my calendar."

Tom leaned over to look at what ray was doing. "Is that relic still working? I thought the batteries were only good for a few thousand charges."

"I set a few extra aside." Ray shrugged. "Besides, I hardly ever use it anymore. There is no one to text or call and I grew bored with Tetris after clearing ten thousand lines."

"Did you have the game with the grumpy birds?" Tom asked.

"You mean Angry Bi..."

"Gentlemen." George interrupted. "Look at our guest. She has no idea what you are blathering about. You are just confusing the poor, uhm - girl, with this. Now be quiet, both of you, while I try to explain." He turned from his chastised colleagues and pulled his chair up closer to the bed. "Let me begin at the beginning, or rather the end. The end of the world as we knew it."

"Almost two thousand years ago," George began, "the world was a marvellous but unstable place. Humans had unlocked the power of the atoms, harnessed the sun's rays and learned how to extract energy from almost anything. They had built machines that could fly to the moon and beyond or visit the deepest parts of the oceans. They could communicate instantly across great distances and information about virtually any subject was available to anyone who had the technology to access it, which was 90% of over twelve billion people."

"But while we had universal communications we did not have universal harmony." Tom continued. "Over half the world's population lived in an area with less than a quarter of the resources, and their populations were starving. Powerful established nations were blamed for changing the climate by smaller, weaker nations that were being engulfed by rising seas or expanding deserts. Resource extraction was blamed for a series of steadily worsening earthquakes and tsunamis. Many governments were controlled by religious, ethnic or ideological groups that believed only they had the vision and entitlement to rule the world. Natural disasters, industrial accidents, regional wars, insurrections and revolutions were so common that they were no longer considered news unless the death toll was in the hundreds of thousands."

"The ease of access to technological information and collaboration not only advanced the sciences at a rapid pace, it also put advanced weapons into the hands of small extremist groups and rouge nations. Some of these weapons could vaporise cities in a single blast, others could kill every living thing in one without damaging the buildings. Still others, genetically targeted weapons, would only kill certain portions of the population."

Ray took up the narrative with hardly a pause. "This was possible because we humans had unlocked our genetic code, a combination of elements that make some people tall and others short, some stout and others thin, dark skinned, healthy or sick. By the mid-twenty-first century we had advanced the science to a point where we could transfer healthy, self-replicating cells to cure any defect or disease. Brain capacity and ability could be enhanced. Muscle mass could be increased. The abilities and attributes of other creatures could be incorporated. We could even affect the offspring of those people by making their new genes inheritable. With the right technology and enough resources, one could create a race of super humans." He said with conviction.

"But only a few countries, the so-called Western nations, had the ability to do so," George continued, "and we here in the west were already hated by much of the developing world because we had historically controlled the majority of the world's resources and had a disproportionate amount of influence in world affairs. The thought that we may in turn develop into some kind of superior race was too much for many of the radical nations and groups to bear. Whether the Western nations ever intended to do so was irrelevant; the rest of the world unleashed every sort of warfare upon them in order to prevent them from doing so."

"Our world died in a series of bangs and whimpers that lasted several decades. Nuclear weapons shattered cities and spread radiation across continents. Chemical attacks poisoned whole populations. Biological agents destroyed crops and left the ground unusable for generations. But that was not enough to kill off the race. Diseases developed in laboratories were unleashed, illnesses that spread like wild fire and left nine out of ten people they touched dead or sterile." George shuddered at the memory.

Tom continued the round-robin by taking his turn. "Those that survived had to contend with the natural diseases that thrived on the mountains of rotting corpses because there was no one to bury them. They had to scavenge for food in a poison wasteland, and fight other small groups of human survivors. Then there were the insects and animals that thrived amongst the carnage to deal with."

"We are somewhat to blame for that." George said sadly at that point in the story.

"Because we were the developers of the new genetic treatments." Tom added

"George, Tom and I." Ray pointed out.

"We started out with the best of intentions." George noted.

"We wanted to develop cures for all of mankind's diseases." Tom clarified

"And make them available to all." Ray added somewhat haughtily.

George spoke again. "But we were reclassified as a National Security Asset when the great war began ..."

"... and brought to this installation ..."

"... along with a number of other specialists ..."

"... like Renaud ..." George interjected.

"... and a lot of government security personnel." Tom slipped in.

There was a moment of silence. George tom and Snowdrop all turned to look at Ray, who was lost in thought.

"What?" Ray asked when he noticed that they were staring at him. "That about summed it up. We were researching our gene treatment and then we were brought here."

"But what happened to all of the rest?" Snowdrop asked.

"Well, except for Renaud, the rest died of old age of course." Ray answered.

Snowdrop was shocked. Hearing of all their other wonderful achievements made he believe that all the humans were truly godlike. "Humans do not live for thousands of years?" She asked tentatively.

"Oh, no." George answered. "The average life span was still somewhat less than a hundred years then, and getting lower what with the pollution and the overcrowding. We are exceptions because of one of the treatments we developed."

"Regenerative DNA." Tom continued. "Every cell that you posses at the time of treatment grows back after it dies. See this scar?" He held up his arm. There was an inch-long line of white tissue near his elbow. "I got it when I was twelve, falling off a bike, it will be with me always. However, about thirteen hundred years ago, I slashed that same arm from wrist to elbow and within a year there was no sign of it."

"Other than a violent or intentional death, we could live forever." Ray added smugly.

"Theoretically." Tom injected.

"Practically." Ray snapped back. The two fell into an argument and George had to intervene to get them back on topic. Once they were settled they recounted their story for Snowdrop in their peculiar, continuous, three-sided narrative.

When it was evident that war and disease threatened the very existence of the human race, they explained, many of the governments gathered their best and brightest minds to develop contingency plans for the survival of their particular way of life. These 'Think Tanks", as they called them, became valuable assets, and therefore primary targets for the warring parties, terrorists and anarchists. The scientists were moved to secret, secure facilities in the mountains and deserts. The three biologists had been transferred to this one, in the Cuyamaca Mountains, along with a few others that had survived attacks on other installations, like the engineer, Renaud.

"Our job was to come up with a way for the humans to survive the genetically targeted diseases that had been unleashed on the world." George explained.

They had followed several lines of research simultaneously, concentrating on trying to cure or vaccinate the survivors against the diseases by order of their military and political overseers, but they met failure at every turn. The only lines of research that showed any promise at all were two radical approaches that they had been investigating in their spare time.

"Ray came up with the idea of self-repairing cells," George said, "which led us to self-replicating DNA."

Ray beamed proudly and opened his mouth to continue but Tom beat him to the punch. "George developed the theory of dominant genes." He injected.

"We'll start with Ray's theory, since that was one mentioned first." George countered diplomatically before the conversation could devolve into another argument. "Ray's line of research involved giving our genes the ability to re-grow any cells damaged by the genetic diseases. His work on single-celled animals and other microscopic life forms looked promising, but could it be developed in time to save a significant portion of the population? There was distinct lack of animal subjects in the chaos that reigned down in the lowlands, and the government had not thought to bring a breeding program to the facility. Meanwhile, people were getting scarcer; too scarce to risk using them as test subjects, at least until the technique was more developed."

"The solution presented itself when the zoo in a nearby coastal city could no longer feed its animals. The local military commander, who was co-located here with us, was given the task of disposing of the animals. Instead, he secured the zoo and directed us to use it to prove or disprove Ray's theories."

"It was once the nation's most prestigious zoo," Ray informed her, "with excellent health and genetic records of thousands of species. It was in a nearby city called San Diego."

"We were all experienced in taking care of lab animals, from our undergraduate days, but this was several orders of magnitude more complicated." Tom pointed out.

"We started with the small herbivores, but eventually we wanted to treat the larger carnivores and omnivores because they were closer genetically to humans. Unfortunately, we could not get enough of a food allotment from the military governor." George said sadly.

"Then I came up with the plan to feed the excess herbivores to the carnivores." Ray added proudly.

"But we had another problem, that of how to treat the big animals directly." Tom countered. We were not equipped to tranquilize them and it takes a fair amount of effort to hold a big predator still long enough to inject the material and let it circulate."

"So I had developed a means of making ingested DNA transferable." George interjected. "By doing so we could treat the smaller animals and pass it on to the larger ones by feeding the herbivores to them. Then, by deliberately infecting them with diseases and inflicting small wounds on them we were able to show that the treatment was working. If they did not die right away their modified genes were able to grow new cells and repair almost any damage. It was rough work though," the mild scientist added sadly, "and I shudder to think of the torture we put those poor animals through."

"What kind of animals did you treat?" Snowdrop inquired.

"The largest carnivores, ones that were susceptible to the same diseases that plagued the human race. Lions and tigers and bears mostly."

"Lions and tigers?"

"And bears."

"Oh my!" Snowdrop exclaimed. "I've never heard of the first two, but we have bears in our valley. Huge brown ones with terrible claws and teeth. It takes a gang of warriors to bring one down."

"There were no native bears left in the zoo by the time we took it over." George continued. "But they had a world-famous breeding program for panda bears, and there were still plenty of them left." He described them and Snowdrop recognized one of the King's examiners. She recounted the final episode of her captivity, the humiliating examination by the three strange creatures and her subsequent escape.

"The big one was certainly a panda." Tom confirmed. "And the stripped one would have been a tiger. But the ugly one was a wart hog, a type of pig from Africa." He explained where that was. "We did not include them in our experiments, not as food because they were as dangerous as the big cats and not as subjects either. But they are very intelligent and we found that they had broken into the smaller animal pens and were raiding the stock we had built up for the experiment."

"Some leopards got in there too. Good night hunters, those." George described them for Snowdrop, and she thought that the runner the first group had sent back might have been one of them.

She thought about what they had told her. "So, what happened to the rest of the humans? Did the treatment not work for them?"

The two other scientists looked to Ray, who frowned before replying. "There were some, uh, complications from the treatment." He reluctantly admitted. "The female offspring of the herbivores we treated had a high rate of sterility."

"Left uncorrected, that side effect alone would have wiped out what was left of the human race in a few generations." Tom added.

"So we could not in good conscious recommend the treatment." George concluded. "And time was running out. Anarchy and disease were reducing the race to isolated pockets of civilization that were launching missiles against each other in an effort to ensure that if their way of life died no one else's would survive. We were also under constant attack by bands of thugs and roving militias that had managed to get their hands onto advanced weaponry. The race was doomed. The earth was going back to the insects, fish and wild animals that dominated before the rise of man."

"But, unbeknownst to the military, we pursued another line of research." Ray revealed.

"George had been studying the dominance of genes." Tom took up the narrative. He talked of how eye colour, facial structure or fur patterns could be inherited from one's ancestors, and went on to describe the theory of natural selection. "Advantageous traits should become reinforced through natural selection." He explained, pointing out the canines' sense of smell and feline night vision as examples. "But we had already discovered how to make certain genes dominant so that parents could design their offspring."

"And we had already started incorporating animal DNA into our own for fashion's sake." George continued. "So we knew how to manipulate genetic material of one species and make it dominant in another. Some in the military wanted us to transfer genetic material from different species into their soldiers to give them attributes that might make them survive the impending apocalypse. The cat's ability to see in the dark, the canine's sense of smell, the camel's endurance, the cheetah's speed ..."

"The cockroach's ability to resist radiation." Ray interrupted. "But they were on the wrong track of course."

"Of Course." Tom said in a rare show of agreement. "Making animal DNA dominant and inherited and injecting into humans would have been a mistake."

"Because the animal DNA would eventually reinforce itself through the process of natural selection." George concluded. "Eventually the descendents of those treated would become animals, their bodies transforming into more efficient forms and their brains adapting to control them. Instead of ensuring the survival of the race we would be speeding its demise."

"So we reversed the process." Ray said quietly, as if their former bosses were still able to hear them. "We developed a strain with human DNA that George had modified."

"Yes." George admitted. "I wanted to make the human DNA dominant, but not so dominant that it changed the nature of the subject to quickly. If they were to survive the end of our world they would need all their natural abilities and traits for a number of generations. So I made the human DNA inheritable, but accumulative rather than dominant. We would treat a small number of animals and set them lose in the wild. Whenever one mated with an untreated animal their offspring would inherit the same proportion of human DNA as the treated parent."

"But when two animals that both carried human DNA mated their offspring would have twice as much, and be incrementally more human than their parents, but would still retain 99.9 percent of their original DNA, unchanged for all appearances and practical considerations. After many generations the changes would start to show, slowly at first, but accelerating as they ceased breeding with their feral cousins. Their bodies would straighten, they would get taller, their digits would lengthen and they would live longer. Their skulls would become larger too, as their brains developed. The number of chromosomes in their DNA would slowly evolve to match those of humans, increasing or decreasing as the case may be. But we had to be careful to pace the development, least the subjects die out before the earth cleansed itself."

Ray took over. "And that meant choosing the right species. We needed to find something not too different from humans, a mammal for certain, fairly intelligent, and with similar bone structure, one that could transform smoothly from a four-footed stance to walking upright. Digits were a must, hoofs or wings could have made the subject species vulnerable during the transition period. Apes would have been perfect but the ones from the zoo had succumbed to the same diseases that were killing us off. None of the species left at the zoo were native to this region, and the larger ones required too much space and an abundance of game that was simply not available. We needed something smaller, numerous, prolific, and adaptable, as we could not rule out drastic climate change after the humans were gone.

"And we needed something that would remember us fondly." Tom chipped in. "Because that is where I came in. I had been working with inherited memory." Tom went on to explain his work with worms and other simple creatures, how they could learn what others of their species knew after consuming that creature. Tom had eventually discovered the mechanism that allowed for that, and was able to build it into George's new genes.

"You see," Tom said to Snowdrop, spreading his hands for emphasis, "it would do no good to grow a new race of humans if we lost all of the knowledge we had built up over the last hundred-thousand years. For one thing, they would not have the resources our ancestors did to assist them in their climb to civilization."

"No oil. No metal ore. No coal. Nothing left on the surface where they could get at it and experiment with it." Ray intoned. "In the end we were mining too deep, pumping gas and oil from miles under the surface of the ocean, and relying on exotic materials produced in laboratories. The first humans had plenty of natural resources to learn from right at their campfire, rocks that oozed tin, copper and zinc when heated, pools of oil that ignited if a spark landed on them, black rocks that burned when exposed to fire. But the metals and minerals that were easy to get to were all used up in the first industrial revolution. Our new humans would be stuck in the stone age."

"Sure, there was plenty of metal and plastic left lying around." Tom said. "But how do you make the leap from bone scrapers and flint tools to working with stainless steel or carbon fibres? With inherited memory added to the human genome they would 'remember' the sciences and technology as they evolved, as well as the arts and language."

"I have often wondered where our words came from." Snowdrop reminisced. "Darwin and I would talk for hours about why both cats and dogs used the same words for things, or why we could look at something we had never seen before and have what it was called jump into our heads."

"That was the inherited memory. We choose cats and dogs because they had been living with humans for thousands of years. The relationship shaped their evolution. Also, they had both proven to be very resilient in previous catastrophes. Both your species had a form of inherited memory already, the feline intuition for hunting, the canine pack instinct, and others. You would also have racial memories of humans from thousands of generations of domestication to help you cope with the growing sense of human identity in you."

"Everyone strives to be like their gods, which they created in their own image"

"Sorry?"

"It's something Darwin said when we were comparing our beliefs." Snowdrop answered. "Both of our species believed that they got their shape and intelligence by being in the human's favour, that they were closer to the humans than the other species. And we both supposed that by living right we would eventually attain the same level of god-like knowledge and power that they, you, once wielded. But he also suspected that we had created the humans in our image, to fulfill a need for a superior being. Someone to blame for our troubles and thank for our pleasures. Someone to provide hope in our darkest hours. An image of perfection to strive toward."

"Well, uh, if you were looking for perfection I'm afraid that you are in for a let down. We made a pretty poor job of it the first go-round." George's face reddened as the group fell into an uneasy silence.

Snowdrop cocked her head to one side and stared at the ceiling as she thought about what the three scientists had revealed. It was a lot to absorb, meeting the legendary humans only to discover that they were not as wondrous as she had been led to believe. Then to discover that they really had given the gift of intelligence to her species, and Darwin's. The thought reminded her of something.

"I suppose that the wolves and coyotes got to be like us because they could breed with dogs." She was rewarded with nods from the three humans. "But The King's folk, they were not as developed as us, but they are evolving ... is that the word? ... evolving the same as we are. How did they get to be that way?

"I'm afraid that we made a bit of a miscalculation with our first catch and release program." George admitted and all three of the scientists went red.

"We thought that Mission Valley, east of San Diego where the zoo was, would be a perfect place for our canine and feline colonies." Tom informed her.

"But someone forgot about predators." Ray added, staring at Tom.

"Everybody forgot about predators." Tom said, exasperated. "And we also forgot to adjust the formula. The DNA was still transferable through ingestion. Therefore anything that ate them could inherent the humanizing genes."

"And the carnivores escaped from the zoo ate them all." Ray informed her.

"After losing the first colonies we realized the error," George continued, "although we were not certain that the new genes would transfer or not. We started again, but this time we took the animals we treated to a fertile valley north of here, far enough away we hoped to allow them to develop while the zoo animals died out."

"Which they should have done in a few dozen generations." Tom pointed out. "Because the increasing occurrences of female infertility would eventually result in a negative birth rate."

"Except for an unforeseen side effect in the treatment." George sighed. "The new genetic material not only repaired cells damaged by injury or disease, it replaced cells that died of old age."

"This sort of thing goes on with some of your cells all the time." Ray informed her. "But the ability to do so wears out as you get older, and some types, heart cells and brain cells for example cannot regenerate."

"Not naturally." Tom interrupted.

"No, not naturally." Ray admitted. "But other scientists had developed ways of growing them a generation before us with something called stem cells. They had the ability to mimic any other type of cell. We included that trait in our formulation, because some of the diseases and chemical weapons specifically targeted those tissues that could not regenerate."

"The formula was not perfected, but once treated, the subject animals started living longer." George commented. "We first noticed it in the small animals we were treating to feed to the larger ones. So we kept some aside and allowed them to breed so we could study that aspect of it. We found that the effect increased in successive generations. We were able to isolate the longevity mechanism and perfect it for humans."

"You three took the perfected treatment, didn't you?" Snowdrop asked. The three nodded in unison.

"We wanted to stay around for a while to supervise our colonies."

"And by that time there were very few humans left alive either out there or in here."

"No females at all that we knew of."

"So with no breeding prospects of own we decided 'Why not'? By our calculations it would freeze our ageing process by repairing any damage done by artificial or natural means."

"No new scars." Tome pointed out, holding up his arm again.

"No greying hair." Ray added, brushing back his wavy black locks.

"No more hair loss." George concluded, rubbing his mostly bald head. "And unfortunately no hair gain either."

"And yet you are the only three to survive all these years."

"We only had enough materials to make five doses." Tom told her. "We had a hell of a time deciding what to do with the other two."

"We could not give it to anyone the military." Ray sniffed. "They would want to be in charge perpetually."

"There was Renaud, of course."

""Yes, he was an obvious choice."

"Why so?"

George leaned forward. "He was a specialist in mechanical physics. The military kept him around hoping that he would develop some kind of super weapon for them, but he did not agree with what they were doing any more than we did, so he refused. They kept him around because he knew how things worked and could repair anything that broke in the facility. We took him into our confidence and offered him one of the two remaining doses. We froze the last just in case another suitable candidate should show up in the future."

"It was not a solely idealistic decision to give one dose to Renaud." Ray pointed out. "He could fix things. He was an engineer, and an outdoorsman, good with his hands." The lanky scientist waggled his own in front of his face for emphasis. "We were more academic, unused to manual labour."

"He was a genius in his own right," Tom scowled at Ray, "although a bit odd, I'll admit."

"Odd?" Snowdrop asked, wondering how anyone could be odder than these three. "How So?"

"Well, for one thing, he had a thing for foxes."